Past Devotions

HE KNOWS ME

by TerryLema

I was thinking about the LORD’s thoughts and ways this morning, marveling in His love and kindness to me – despite knowing me so well. “O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.”  [Ps 139:1-3 NKJV]

God has searched me, David wrote. I always picture David lying on the ground looking up at the stars and thinking about God thinking about him. God had searched David, knew his thoughts and path and all his ways.

God has searched me. He knows my thoughts. That both comforts me and sorrows me. I know some of the things I think. I see my arrogance flare, or my pride well up. I know my opinions and sometimes they are not very pretty. Still, He welcomes me.

God comprehends my path. It’s often crooked or rocky. It often deviates from the way God would have me walk. I lose my way at times and wonder how I got where I am. Then my precious Savior is there, guiding me back through the leading of His Spirit within me.

God is acquainted with my ways. My ways … my ways, often, they are not His ways. They are ways prompted by my anxiety or my greed or my lack of understanding. They are ways that are ingrained in me since childhood, my reactions and responses to life. Still, He loves me.

I may not be lying under the stars this morning thinking about God thinking about me – but I am so thankful He knows me, just as I am.

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What are You thinking?

by TerryLema

Political ads are everywhere. You can’t turn around without seeing or hearing one politician or another blather on and on about something. As I listen, I often wonder to myself, “what are you thinking.” It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you are on, or if you are in the middle, politicians spout ideas that often make no practical sense.

And while on the subject, have you ever watched the media press someone for a response (someone who doesn’t want to give a response)? They can ask the dumbest questions, often repeating over and over what other reporters have asked, or what the interviewee has already said they will not comment on. I wonder, “what are you thinking?”

Having railed on politicians and the media, I must now admit that there is another time when I wonder, “what are You thinking?” That’s when my God is talking, and I must admit that as He told Isaiah, we can’t really understand His ways or His thoughts. “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,’ says the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.’” [Isaiah 55:8-9 NKJV]

God is God. He is perfect in wisdom, knowledge and holiness. He has perfect foreknowledge, knowing all that can be known. If I could understand His thoughts, or perceive His ways completely, He wouldn’t be any more intelligent than I am – and (said with a smile), we’d all be in big trouble.

It is precisely that we can’t understand Him that makes His thoughts and ways toward us all the more precious. He doesn’t operate on our finite level but is infinite in power and knowledge. So, while it may seem a bit silly to you, this morning I am so thankful that I don’t always understand my blessed LORD but lean on Him by faith through His grace. Amen.

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Falling Short

by TerryLema

Right after the writer of Hebrews reminds us that God disciplines us in order to provide spiritual vitality, he also encourages us to “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God.” [Heb 12:14-15 NKJV]

Three things to consider in that short sentence. First, we are to “pursue” peace with all people. I noticed that it doesn’t say we are to “achieve” peace with all people. That would be an impossible task. Some people just won’t make peace with us. Whatever their reaction is, however, we are still to pursue that possibility of peace through Christ Jesus.

In addition to pursuing peace with all people, we are to also pursue holiness. Just like we’ll not achieve peace with everyone, we are not going to achieve complete holiness until we stand in the presence of God. In this life we are going to fail. Still that doesn’t mean we simply give up or make excuses. Yes, we’re human, but we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God whose job it is to lead us into righteousness and holiness.

Last of all, we are to be very careful that we don’t “fall short of the grace of God.” That little phrase always confounds and amazes me. God’s grace, His unmerited favor is given to us for both salvation and for sanctification – for becoming conformed to the image of God’s Dear Son.

We need His grace for salvation because we can’t save ourselves. The price is too great to pay and we are bankrupt. We also need His grace to grow in our spiritual walk. It’s there, in abundance, ready and waiting for us to appropriate as we cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. God makes His grace available to us. It confounds me why He would do such a thing for us. It amazes me that we might leave His grace sitting there and not use it to become more and more like His Son, Christ Jesus our LORD.

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God’s Faithful Discipline

by TerryLema

Whenever a passage of Scripture begins with that dangerous word, “therefore,” it means that you must go back to the previous passage to pick up the context of what’s coming next. This morning in Hebrews I opened to chapter 12 and found the familiar statement: “Therefore, strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet.” [12:12-13 NKJV]

The writer is talking about renewing our spiritual vitality – those hands which hang down in despair and the feeble knees which may no longer hold us up or keep us praying as we should. Realizing that the exhortation began with that dangerous word “therefore,” I looked back at the previous passage.

It is all about the discipline of the LORD. It begins in verse 1 and ends with these words in verse 11. “Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” [NKJV]

There surely is nothing joyful about discipline while it is going on. It’s downright painful. It is humiliating to be reminded that we fall short of what we should be as children of God. It is, however, absolutely necessary when we do fall short as children of the Father to respond to God’s discipline correctly.

When we receive the discipline of God as an offering of His love and allow it to train us to be what God wants us to be, it yields, or brings to life, righteousness in us.

How often we sing joyfully, “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” without realizing that one of the ways God’s faithfulness is expressed to us is in discipline.

Thank you, Father. Amen.

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Unexpressed Needs

by TerryLema

I’ve spent the last five days thinking, talking, and writing about last week’s Prayer Summit. I shared with the church on Sunday what I’ve shared in these devotions. After today, I’ll be writing about something else, putting the Prayer Summit to rest, but, there is a part of me that in all the thinking, writing and talking I’ve done that has still been unable to express what is deep inside.

Sunday night we were watching an XFL game, sort of. Bob had it on, and I was half listening to it as I rested in the big living room lounge chair. I was tired from the busy week, wanting to just curl up in my blanket and vegetate. Deep inside my spirit I was sensing something I couldn’t yet put into words. I still can’t.

Part of me wanted to cry before the LORD, part of me simply wanted to rejoice. I think I was simply overwhelmed in soul and spirit by the absolute, loving, faithfulness of God. Moses said of him in Deuteronomy 7:9: “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.”

The Psalmist wrote: “For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.” [Ps 33:4]

And Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: “The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.” [1 Thess 5:24]

And while my word is not the inspired Word of God, this morning it does come from a personal experience with the Faithful God. I did not know what to expect at the Prayer Summit. The Faithful God, however, knew exactly what He would give me there … and He was faithful to my deepest needs that I had not yet even been able to voice.

Thank you, Faithful God, for your gracious, wonderful faithfulness to us. Amen & Amen.

 

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PONDERING

by TerryLema

In my 73 years I’ve attended a lot of communion services. I’ve had communion in many different settings, in churches, homes, retreats, conferences. I have never, however, experienced a communion service as I did at the Prayer Summit last Tuesday night.

At the Summit, we prayed the Scriptures. We prayed out of Psalms and through Luke 15 and through passages about the glory and worthiness of God and the expectation that “comes in the morning.”

Tuesday night just before communion we prayed Matthew 26:1 through Matthew 27:60, 135 verses. We read them, taking turns, and then expressed in prayer what that Scripture brought to our hearts. When we finished, we shared communion.

I must admit I wept through most of Matthew 26 and 27 and as I heard the prayers of others. There were times when the descriptions of what Jesus endured for us took my breath away. I wanted to run and hide in a corner and just weep and weep.

When it came time to share the elements of bread and fruit of the vine, I found a new depth of meaning in the sacrament. It’s something I still can’t put into words, and I’m not going to try to do so. I’d just ruin it. Instead I am going to be like Mary and ponder this in my heart.

“The Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.”

[1 Cor 11:23-26 NKJV]

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Three Tabernacles

by TerryLema

I must admit that I have often thought Peter was a dork when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus, James and John. Moses and Elijah showed up to converse with Jesus and when they were departing, Peter jumped in, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” — because he did not know what to say.” [Mark 9:5-6 NKJV]

What was Peter thinking? –that the three of them could just stay on the mountain with Jesus for the rest of their lives?

When I woke up Thursday morning, I knew exactly what Peter was thinking. I wanted to be back up on the mountain with Jesus. The presence of our LORD was so vivid while there, so amazing, I wanted to build three tabernacles, booths, tents, anything to remain there with Him.

But just as Jesus, Peter, James and John had to come down off that mountain top to face what Jesus called a “faithless and perverse generation,” so we had to leave the mountain experience and come down in the valley to face the lost and wounded. [v41]

Mountaintop experiences are meant as preparation for service among those needing salvation. We aren’t meant to live there away from everything, but to allow the experience of the magnificent LORD to live in us even amid our own faithless and perverse generation.

Peter discovered the truth of that and shared it in his second letter … “we were eyewitnesses of his majesty … when we were with Him on that sacred mountain.” [1:16,18 NIV]

I caught a glimpse of His majesty at the prayer Summit. I’m back in the valley again … but I’d rather be on the mountain.

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THE CHURCH’S FUTURE

by TerryLema

It is going to take me a long time to process everything from last week’s Prayer Summit, but I walked away with one thing immediately. If the young people I met there are any indication of the kind of leaders God is raising up, the Church is in good hands. I’m not worried about her future.

The Summit included men and two women, young and old and some in between. I was blessed by the young people. I saw burning hearts for Christ’s bride in each one. They wept and prayed and worshipped and praised. They called out for the harvest of lost souls and for unity. I heard their hearts in each prayer they uttered. It gave me great hope.

When it comes time for me to turn The Way over to the next generation, I know two things. God will bring us a wonderful young man or woman to follow His lead, one who will pick up my own heart’s desire for a church built on the grace of God.

I also know where I will attend church when that happens. God has given me a special love for one young minister, and I would relish sitting under his ministry for the rest of my days.

Maybe I know one other thing. That is that I must be praying more for the future of the church and those young men and women who now fill and will fill the servant-leadership roles.

I am reminded of what Paul said to Timothy: “You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men [and women] who will also be qualified to teach others. Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” [2 Tim 2:1-3 NIV]

God is calling us older believers to be praying mightily for these “sons and daughters” that He is raising up.

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GREATER HEIGHTS

by TerryLema

I returned Wednesday from a Pastor’s Prayer Summit. All I can say is “Wow!” and that it will probably take me weeks (months?) to process everything I experienced, heard, felt and received while there. I have never spent three days praying mainly from the Scriptures. It was a new experience. I wondered before I went if I could pray for three days in a row, but when it was over I wished it had been four, or five or six days in a row. I am barely back and already looking forward to next year.

I had so many things running through my mind and heart when I returned on Wednesday. I already missed the beautiful peace and silence of that mountain location back off the highway. I missed being in the mountains rather than just seeing them from a distance as I do here in the Treasure Valley.

Wednesday before we left, I just stood at the great windows in the conference center and looked out, soaking in as much as I could of God’s magnificent scenes before me.

Boise is almost 3000-foot elevation. I always feel as if I am in the mountains here. At the Prayer Summit I was in the mountains I can see from Boise – with even higher mountains before me.

I thought before the Prayer Summit that I had a good prayer life – that I prayed well and often. After these three days at the Summit, I realized that my prayer life is far short of what it should be. I went much higher than I dreamed I could and realized that there is still more.

I had a “Boise” prayer life, experienced a “mountain” one – and now desiring those even greater heights awaiting.

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” [Colossians 4:2]

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I CAN DO ALL THINGS

by TerryLema

A most amazing thing happened at the Prayer Summit. I wasn’t aware of it until I got home Wednesday evening. I felt good … not just “ok” … I felt good for three days in a row.

I had a bit of stiffness when I sat too long, and at times resembled one of the old Weeble dolls, but I had no aches, very little pain in my neck, and wonder of wonders, no fatigue. I walked up and down the stairs multiple times, I was up early and stayed up late for me. I didn’t have a need to nap. I’ve not had three days in a row like that since last July. It had to be a God-thing because it’s not been that way since I returned.

I must admit that last Sunday I was anxious about how I would hold up during those three days of the Summit and traveling back and forth. I anticipated and expressed my anxiety over how I would do, so much so that the church prayed for me last Sunday. And God heard.

And God answered. Except for a few digestive issues (which were my own fault because I ate things I shouldn’t have), I had no health issues.

How often I’ve read and quoted Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” [NKJV]

I’ve believed that and experienced the strength of God many times in the past. Those three days in the mountains at the Summit, however, were a new and greater experience of that verse. God overcame my “still-to-be-diagnosed” PMR and gave me strength so that I could approach His throne in grace and mercy in prayer.

What a wonderful LORD we serve, bless His Holy Name. Amen.

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